Wagner was one of the few major composers who studied philosophy seriously. Bryan Magee places the composer's artistic development in the context of the philosophy of his age, and gives us the first detailed and comprehensive study of the close links between Wagner and the philosophers - from the pre-Marxist socialists to Feuerbach and Schopenhauer. Magee explores the relationship between words and music, between the conscious and the unconscious mind, between art and philosophy. It tackles soberly and judiciously the Wagner whose paranoia, egocentricity and anti-semitism are repugnant, as well as the Wagner of artistic genius. The resulting text illuminates Wagner and the music-dramas in altogether new ways.

Nietzsche’s relationship with Wagner has long been a source of controversy and has given rise to a number of important studies, including this major breakthrough in Nietzsche scholarship, first published in 1982. In this work Hollinrake contends that the nature and extent of the anti-Wagnerian pastiche and polemic in Thus Spake Zarathustra is arguably the most important factor in the association between the two. Thus Wagner, as the purveyor of a particular brand of Schopenhauerian pessimism, is here revealed as one of the principle sources – and targets – of Zarathustra. Whilst addressed primarily to students of German Literature, this book will also be of interest to musicians, philosophers and students of the history of culture and ideas.

This Handbook provides a comprehensive and authoritative analysis of the philosophical dimensions of German Romanticism, a movement that challenged traditional borders between philosophy, poetry, and science. With contributions from leading international scholars, the collection places the movement in its historical context by both exploring its links to German Idealism and by examining contemporary, related developments in aesthetics and scientific research. A substantial concluding section of the Handbook examines the enduring legacy of German romantic philosophy. Key Features: • Highlights the contributions of German romantic philosophy to literary criticism, irony, cinema, religion, and biology. • Emphasises the important role that women played in the movement’s formation. • Reveals the ways in which German romantic philosophy impacted developments in modernism, existentialism and critical theory in the twentieth century. • Interdisciplinary in approach with contributions from philosophers, Germanists, historians and literary scholars. Providing both broad perspectives and new insights, this Handbook is essential reading for scholars undertaking new research on German romantic philosophy as well as for advanced students requiring a thorough understanding of the subject.

Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900) supported the unification of Europe and reflected on this like few other philosophers before or after him. Many of his works are concerned with the present state and future of European culture and humanity. Resisting the “nationalist nonsense” and “politics of dissolution” of his day, he advocated the birth of “good Europeans,” i.e. “supra-national” individuals and the “amalgamation of nations.” Nietzsche, Wagner, Europe analyzes the development of Friedrich Nietzsche’s ideal of European culture based on his musical aesthetics. It does so against the background of contemporary searches for a wider, cultural meaning beyond Europe’s economic-political union. The book claims that Nietzsche always propagated the “aestheticization” of Europe, but that his view on how to achieve this changed as a result of his dramatically altering philosophy of music. The main focus is on Nietzsche’s passion for and later aversion to Wagner’s music, and, in direct connection with this, his surprising embrace of Italian operas as new forms of “Dionysian” music and of Goethe as a model of “Good Europeanism.”

Designed as a companion volume to 2006's Inside the Ring, which focused on the four operas comprising Richard Wagner's Der Ring des Nibelungen, this new volume features more than a dozen original essays focusing on all of Wagner's non-Ring operas. Part One looks at the individual operas, including Der Fliegende Hollander, Tannhauser, Lohengrin, Tristan und Isolde, Die Meistersinger von Nurnberg, and Parsifal. Part Two reveals the connections between Wagnerian opera and other arts, including dance, filmmaking, and fiction. Finally, Part Three examines Wagner's operas in performance, featuring interviews with mezzo-soprano Michelle DeYoung and heldentenor Ben Heppner, both well-known for their Wagnerian performances. The book includes many photographs from current productions by the Metropolitan Opera and other opera companies, along with bibliographies and a discography of recommended performances.

A landmark work from the founder of the Frankfurt School. A key work in the study of Adorno, of interest to students and general readers alike.

The trajectory of Friedrich Nietzsche’s thought has long presented a difficulty for the study of his philosophy. How did the young Nietzsche—classicist and ardent advocate of Wagner’s cultural renewal—become the philosopher of Will to Power and the Eternal Return? With this book, Laurence Lampert answers that question. He does so through his trademark technique of close readings of key works in Nietzsche’s journey to philosophy: The Birth of Tragedy, Schopenhauer as Educator, Richard Wagner in Bayreuth, Human All Too Human, and “Sanctus Januarius,” the final book of the 1882 Gay Science. Relying partly on how Nietzsche himself characterized his books in his many autobiographical guides to the trajectory of his thought, Lampert sets each in the context of Nietzsche’s writings as a whole, and looks at how they individually treat the question of what a philosopher is. Indispensable to his conclusions are the workbooks in which Nietzsche first recorded his advances, especially the 1881 workbook which shows him gradually gaining insights into the two foundations of his mature thinking. The result is the most complete picture we’ve had yet of the philosopher’s development, one that gives us a Promethean Nietzsche, gaining knowledge even as he was expanding his thought to create new worlds.